Kadumi and Ruha stepped to Lander's side.

"What happened?" asked the widow.

To Lander's surprise, his companions were not staggered by the sight. Their faces showed anger and outrage, but there was no sign of horror in either of their expressions.

"The men ate the camels," Lander said, wondering if all Bedine were made of such stern stuff. "The reptilian sell-swords ate the men."

"There must be over a thousand mercenaries with the Zhentarim," Kadumi said, studying the gruesome scene with a thoughtful air. "A few hundred could not have eaten so many."

"True, but this points out the Zhentarim's weakness," Ruha said. "The invaders must be running low on their food. Perhaps they will starve, after all."

"If that is going to happen," the Harper said. "We must reach the next tribe before the Zhentarim feed it to their mercenaries. Can we do it?"

Ruha nodded. "Colored Waters is a week away. With Kadumi's extra camels, we should easily overtake the Zhentarim."

The youth frowned at his sister-in-law. "Do you know who is camped at Colored Waters? Are they allies of the Mtair Dhafir?"

Ruha shook her head.

"Then perhaps it is not our place to go with the berrani," he said. "Even if they let us into camp, those camped at Colored Waters may not believe us."

The widow shrugged. "I see no harm in helping Lander," she said. "Besides, it is our duty to avenge the slaughter of the Qahtan and the Mtair Dhafir, is it not?"

Kadumi regarded the corpse-filled wadi for several moments, then nodded. "It is."

"Good," Lander said. He glanced at the bodies uncomfortably. "Is there anything we should do?"

Ruha shook her head. "N'asr's children took their spirits away last night," she said. "There is nothing we can do but reach Colored Waters as fast as we can."

Lander did not understand what she meant, but he felt he should follow his own custom and warn the spirits about the dangers they faced in the Realm of the Dead. He stepped to the edge of the wadi, then called in a clear loud voice, "Dead ones, Cyric-er, N'asr-has denizens everywhere. Remember your gods and keep their faith. If you doubt your gods, you will suffer as surely as the wicked."

When the Harper turned away from the gulch, Kadumi was openly smirking at him. Even Ruha's eyes were twinkling as she asked, "What did they answer?"

"It's sort of a prayer," Lander explained.

"It sounded like advice to me," Ruha countered. "Have you visited N'asr's camp?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you give advice to the dead?" demanded Kadumi, forcing his camel to kneel so he could mount it. "You don't know what they'll find."

Lander started to explain that he had learned about how the Realm of the Dead worked from his Cyric-worshiping mother, then thought better of explaining his family history. Instead, forcing his own camel to kneel, he simply said, "It can't hurt."

"That's right, Kadumi," Ruha said, also kneeling her camel. "After the vultures carry off the spirits of the dead, Lander can say whatever he likes to the corpses." She climbed into her camel's saddle, then added, "Now, if they start talking back, we'd better change our minds about riding with him."

Lander flushed, uncertain as to whether or not the widow was poking fun at him, and uncomfortable in either event. He mounted his camel and urged it to its feet. "I told you, they never talk back."

Kadumi laughed, then commanded his camel to rise and pointed the way into the desert.

On the western side of Rahalat, the sand dunes grew smaller and more yellowish in color. Within two miles, they assumed the parallel, ridgelike pattern of transverse dunes. To Lander, the sands resembled nothing so much as a lake of golden waters on a breezy day. In the wide troughs between the dunes, the sand was no more than a few inches deep and the camels found the going quite easy.

The dunes themselves rose no higher than thirty feet, with gentle slopes leading both up to and down from the crest. Where the Zhentarim had crossed them, the passage of so many thousands of feet had often pounded a small pass through the ridge. These passes made travel even easier, for they often reduced the height the Harper's small company had to climb by as much as ten feet.

As he reached the summit of one of these passes, Lander paused between its ten-foot walls and looked over his shoulder. He saw that the ground had slowly been rising as they rode away from the Shunned Mountain. The great whaleback dunes on the eastern side of Rahalat lay in an immense basin. From this distance, they looked like a stormy ocean of ice. Remembering the effort it had required to struggle over one of those monstrous dunes, the Harper was grateful for the easy travel through these golden sands.

When Kadumi and Ruha reached the summit of the little pass, Lander nodded toward the white sands. "It's like an ocean."

Kadumi looked confused. "We call it the Bowl of Loneliness. What do you mean, 'ocean'?"

Lander started to explain. "It's a pond of water so large-" A heap of sand sloughed off the northern wall of the pass, and the Harper stopped in midsentence.

"What's wrong?" Ruha asked.

Before Lander could answer, a black shroud burst out of the sand. At the same time, a swarthy voice called, "Show yourselves!"

The voice was speaking Common, so Lander assumed it belonged to a Zhentarim. Reaching for his sword with one hand and using the reins to whip his mount with the other, the Harper yelled in Bedine, "Ambush! Get out of here!"

Before the camel took two steps, a pair of crossbow quarrels sailed across Lander's path from the other side of the little pass. The Harper spun around to face the attack and found two men less then ten yards away. They held empty crossbows in their hands. Behind them, four more men were flinging the sand from their black burnooses and rising from their subsurface hiding places, crossbows cocked and ready to fire.

"Move and you die!" warned the figure that had first burst from the sand. "Stay still and perhaps you will live."

Lander reined his camel to a halt, then slipped his sword back into scabbard and turned to face the speaker. The invader wore the black burnoose the Zhentarim had adopted as their desert uniform. Narrow, steely eyes gazed out from beneath his furrowed brow. Behind him stood another five Zhentarim, sand running from their robes in yellow rivulets. That meant that there were a total of six men on each side of the pass.

The Harper did not answer the leader's question, for if he showed that he understood their words, the Zhentarim would realize that he was no Bedine. He suspected that the ambushers already knew his identity-or would deduce it from his light skin soon enough-but he saw no reason to make the enemy's job simpler. Perhaps he might even confuse them long enough to plot an escape.

"Dismount!" the Zhentarim demanded, still speaking Common. While his subordinates kept their weapons trained on the small party, the commander moved toward Lander and motioned for all three of his captives to kneel their camels.

Kadumi started to pull his scimitar from its scabbard, but Lander motioned for the youth to keep his blade sheathed. Ruha was the first to obey the Black Robe's command, slipping out of her saddle and kneeling at her mount's side. The widow held the reins drawn tightly to her body, forcing the beast to crane its neck around at an awkward angle. Her mount roared its indignation, but she ignored it.

Puzzled by Ruha's peculiar action, Lander also couched his own mount, then watched as Kadumi resentfully did likewise.

The Zhentarim walked straight to Lander. "Where are you going? Why are you following us?"

As he spoke, he reached for the Harper's aba, and Lander knew there was no use in trying to hide his identity. Beneath his aba, Lander still wore the harp and moon pin of the Harpers. After Bhadla had noticed its outline, he had taken care to keep that part of his outer clothing dirty enough to camouflage the pin beneath, but he had not removed the symbol. When Florin had fastened it on his breast, he had sworn to always wear the harp and moon over his heart.